Looking back, looking forward

This’ll be a brief post. I’ll look back and forwards because the present is an unpleasant and difficult place for me to describe.

Friday saw the Roadworks band take the stage with Paul Gilbody and Thorn’s Musical Journey at the Lot in Grassmarket. A beautiful venue with an attentive and helpful sound man; a welcoming audience, if smaller than we’d hoped for. Between Paul’s set and ours they brought in tables and the floor was filled which felt better than all the audients clinging to the walls. Ms Fi had injured her ankle earlier in the day and had to miss the show; she still got a round of applause! Mary helped with vocals on I Want to Know, and Darren Thornberry on Roadblock. The performance was well received and seemed to me to be at least competent. I was very impressed with the musicianship of Paul, his band and Darren’s band.  Photographer Nik Watt captured the whole night – Nik’s photos.

Thursday sees the debut of Bespoke at the Ark. Strictly speaking it’s not our debut, we did perform at a charity gig several years ago, but there was a long gap after that before we started playing again, so this feels like a fresh start.  Describing Bespoke is troublesome – it’s rock with elements of prog, funk, African, dub, oh I don’t know. Trying to listen to it objectively it’s certainly driven by the bass, everything starts from there.

Judge for yourself … (and if you come up with any descriptions or musical references, let me know!).  Here are four very different songs.